|  Citations
Cancer-treatment response
is in the genes
Your genes may determine how you respond to cancer treatment, reports
Chicago oncologist Mark Ratain. In a
study of 61 colon-cancer patients, Ratain found that a patient’s
UGT1A1 gene variant determines his or her susceptibility to severe
side effects from the new colon-cancer drug Irinotecan. Patients
with the gene variant 7/7 taking the drug experience a substantial
white-blood-cell drop and become infection prone. Ratain, who announced
his findings at a spring American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting,
believes that a screening test for the variant could become available
soon.
Zen of golf
Professional golfers generally keep their
emotions in check when competing, while amateurs do not, revealed
Chicago neurologist John Milton and
his University research team at a spring American Academy of Neurology
meeting. Using EEG and MRI tests, Milton scanned the brains of both
LPGA and amateur women golfers while the subjects imagined taking
shots. For the pros, the neural circuits involved in motor performance
were more active than those involved in emotions, while the reverse
was true for the amateurs. Milton hopes to use the knowledge that
golf skill has a significant mental component to create rehabilitation
methods for people with physically debilitating neurological diseases.
Wealth of families
Children of both the wealthy and the poor tend to mimic their parents’
financial habits, say Erik Hurst, assistant
professor of economics, and Kerwin Kofi Charles of the University
of Michigan. Hurst and Charles examined 1,491 parent-child pairs
from data collected in the 1980s and 1990s on families’ socioeconomic
status over time. Education, often thought to be a major factor
in predicting children’s continued wealth, turned out to play
a relatively small role. Instead, Hurst and Charles argue, casual
family discussions about the importance of saving money keep most
children of wealthy parents well off. The study will be published
in the Journal of Political Economy later this year.
Teach to the hand
Teachers unconsciously pick up on cues from students’ gestures
and adjust their instruction accordingly, psychology professor Susan
Goldin-Meadow and researcher Melissa
Singer, AM’97, found. Goldin-Meadow and colleagues
had previously discovered that students are ready to learn more
when their gestures don’t match their speech. For example,
a student might incorrectly add the numerals on both sides of an
equation’s equal sign, but still correctly gesture to each
side separately. The study, published in the May Developmental
Psychology, says that teachers showed “mismatchers”
new ways to solve problems.
What happens when you mix
drugs and alcohol
A nicotine-blocking drug used to help smokers quit also reduces
alcohol euphoria in casual drinkers. In associate professor of psychiatry
Harriet de Wit’s study, published
in the May Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research,
participants were given a mecamylamine pill or a placebo followed
by either an alcoholic or nonalcoholic drink. Alcohol drinkers who
received mecamylamine reported less euphoria and a reduced desire
to drink more. Nicotine receptors release the feel-good brain chemical
dopamine when they are stimulated; the researchers suspect mecamylamine
blocks alcohol from acting on those receptors and thus decreases
dopamine levels in drinkers. Researchers still must study the drug’s
effects on heavy drinkers but hope that it may help treat alcoholics.
—P.M. and D.G.R.
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